Cultured Code - Arrvials

Recently I moved to using things on my desktop and iPhone. When I was doing my pre-purchase dance of checking out the website, forums etc, I stumbled across a curious section of the cultured code website, their arrivals

The page states the features and bug fixes that they are currently working on. They do this using the metaphor of an arrivals board that you would see in a port or station.

I really like this page, not just for the delicious aesthetic.

Metaphor

Listing their issues like this is really well suited to the arrivals metaphor. To me, when releasing software, the relationship between the customer and developer has a lot in common with waiting for an arrival. It makes a lot of sense to structure it like such. This isn’t a page I’m going to look at each week, let alone each day so it’s nice to be able to easily let the metaphor do the work for me and get the information off the page and into my head.

Honesty & Accountability.

When you state that you’re working on something and then go into detailing who’s working on it and providing a status for that task, it makes you accountable. All of your customers and potential customers get to see what you’re doing, who’s doing it and when it’s going to be done by. For me, this does more for the brand than logos, aesthetic or user experience could ever do.

It brings me joy.

I find it hard to say why it does, but it does and I suspect it has something to do the two points I’ve made above. Design is a lot like food though, we all have our favourite meals and recipes. What someone else loves, someone else will hate and that’s all part of the rich tapestry that we weave our lives around. So yes, it brings me joy.

It might be a little below the belt, but I wonder what the TextMate 2 status board would say? Bermuda Triangle?